Land ownership

Title deeds

Title deeds are legal documents that record and give effect to transactions relating to land, buildings and other real property. Being legal documents, they are not always straightforward to use, but they can reveal information about the owners and occupiers of a house, and occasionally its physical development.

1910 Domesday Survey

The 1910 Finance Act allowed for various duties to be levied on land values, some based on the value of land above the level it stood as at 30 April 1909. This resulted in the surveying and valuing of all property and land, making the 1910 valuation survey an informative source for local and community historians.

Estate records

Estate records can provide a wealth of information when looking at the lands and communities linked with some of the county’s great landowning families. As an archive source, however, they do require a considerable amount of time to search effectively.

Manorial records

Manors were landed estates that involved certain rights and obligations. Manorial documents continued to be created from the mediaeval period until 1922, when manorial jurisdiction was abolished. Many manors, however, had disappeared long before that date.